Suitcases and Lists
by MeganBethWrites
Summary: "Get her on record, old girl," the Doctor said, patting the console. "She's a keeper."


This was written ages ago for a prompt. It's silly and short and often poorly written, but I love Amy and the Doctor's relationship, so... Here it is!

* * *

"Doctor… what _are_ you doing?"

Amy had just walked into the console room of the TARDIS to find the Doctor's behind sticking up from a hole in the floor, legs flailing madly. She couldn't help thinking this wasn't a particularly unusual occurrence for him.

"Well, you know me, Amy, I love the feeling of my blood rushing to my head… and it staying there to the point where I can no long feel certain nether regions of my anatomy…" came the Doctor's muffled voice from beneath the TARDIS floor.

"Right!" said Amy, interrupting before he could elaborate. "I get the picture. Like a hand?"

"No, I'd quite like my head to implode, really," said the Doctor; seemingly getting more annoyed and more sarcastic the longer he stayed in that particular – uncomfortable - position.

Giggling, Amy grasped the Doctor around his knees, and tugged as she walked backwards. He was heavier than she anticipated.

When the Doctor had been successfully removed from the underside of the TARDIS, Amy kicked his (no longer airborne) backside. "You could've helped me!"

"How could I help you?" panted the Doctor, quite red in the face. "I was the wrong way up! Anyway, I had this thing to carry," he said, sitting up.

For the first time, Amy noticed he had something clutched to his chest. A dusty, and apparently ancient, suitcase.

"A suitcase?" Amy asked, dubious. "A really tatty suitcase?"

"Yes, a really tatty suitcase," replied the Doctor, apparently slightly insulted. "This is a treasure box of… well, treasures, I suppose. It contains some of my favourite things. I'd thought I'd lost it when the TARDIS rebuilt itself. Ironic, really, losing a lost and found box."

"A lost and found box," Amy repeated slowly, shaking her head. "Nope, I'm sorry, I don't get it. If you've got your own things in a box, surely they're just… found? How can they be lost?"

"They're not _my_ things," the Doctor said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He wasn't looking at Amy anymore; he was busying himself with the intricate looking locks on the suitcase.

"Well, who's are they, then?" she asked, plonking herself down beside the Doctor. "Not _stolen_?" she asked, in feigning shock.

"People who I knew… people who I travelled with," he said, pulling on the lock before shaking it vigorously. Amy, baffled, didn't say anything.

For about a minute the Doctor struggled with the suitcase, occasionally shouting as he pulled or pushed it, and banging it on the floor in frustration. Or perhaps just they way it opened, you can never be sure with the Doctor.

"There we go!" he exclaimed eventually, as the lid sprang open. It looked, from where Amy was sitting, empty – but when he plunged his hands into it, and half the Doctors arm disappeared, Amy realised it must be, as things often were with the Doctor, bigger on the inside.

After a good rummage, the Doctor withdrew a fat notebook. "That was Sarah Jane's," he said, thrusting it at Amy, before having another poke around in the suitcase. Eventually, he threw something else in Amy's direction, murmuring "Martha's," as he shoved his hand bag in the bag. It was a stethoscope, she thought, but with an extra pad for listening to hearts – it had been designed to listen to two hearts rather than one.

"Time Lord?" she asked, holding it up. The Doctor shook his head.

"Surprisingly, no. From a planet called Bogny, they have two hearts too… well, they don't exactly pump blood, but Martha was interested all the same, so I pinched it…"

Not bothering to question who Martha was, Amy occupied herself with the stethoscope while the Doctor continued to rummage, listening to her heart through her shirt. It was much clearer than when she had messed around with Rory's… apparently the Bogny's were a great deal better at designing medical equipment…

"What's that?" the Doctor muttered suddenly, to himself rather then Amy, as he withdrew a blue jacket from the depths of his lost and found box. A realisation came over his face, and his expression quickly became grim. "_Oh_."

"Whose is it?" asked Amy, laying the stethoscope down by the notebook, and attempting to take it off him.

"No, don't… I'll leave it in… can't get damaged then…"

"Doctor? Who did it belong to?" Amy pressed, furrowing her brow.

"No one, a friend, it's irrelevant, you wouldn't care, long and boring story, just someone I knew," he babbled, stowing it away again and continuing to rummage.

"Who?" Amy demanded. "Have you mentioned her? Do I know her?"

"No, honestly, you wouldn't care…"

"Doctor! Shut up and tell me who the jacket belongs to."

The Doctor sighed. "Rose," he said, simply.

"And who's Rose?"

The Doctor resisted the temptation to snap, "the old you", and instead busied himself in the suitcase once more.

"Tell meeeee," Amy whined, resorting to her schoolgirl tactics. "Go on, please."

"It doesn't matter, Amy, now shut up while I find something."

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"Give me five minutes?"

"Tell me who Rose is!" she demanded, turning to face the Doctor, legs crossed.

"After I've found something," the Doctor said. Amy remained unconvinced.

"Now."

"No."

"_Now_!"

"Amy!"

"Doctor!" she mimicked.

"For heavens sake," the Doctor moaned. "Will you ever let this go?"

"Not until you tell me," Amy said.

"Oh, fine, fine, _fine_," said the Doctor, exasperated. "You want to know who Rose is."

"Yes," said Amy, smiling. She always wore him down.

"I travelled with her, not that long ago, really, and then she left… I lost her…" said the Doctor, not meeting Amy's eye. The smile was quickly wiped off her face.

"She isn't –"

"No," said the Doctor quickly. "But I'll still never see her again."

"Oh," breathed Amy. "I'm sorry, Doctor, I wouldn't have –"

"It doesn't matter."

He started delving through the suitcase again, not saying a word.

Amy wanted to say something comforting, but what? She didn't know anything about Rose. She could say completely the wrong thing, accidentally upset him all over again… she really needed to learn to shut her mouth sometimes.

But before she could assemble something to say that was guaranteed to be harmless, the Doctor's head disappeared into the suitcase along with his other arm.

"Amy!" he called, his voice muffled all over again. "Get a torch!"

"Where from?" she asked, clambering to her feet.

"Boxes over there," the Doctor replied, pointing with his leg.

After finding and retrieving the torch, Amy asked, "How big is it in there?"

"Too big," the Doctor said. "Well, too disorganised, at any rate… Can never find the one thing you're looking – _aha_!"

The Doctor withdrew from the suitcase, a broad grin on the face, and a yellowing piece of paper attached to an old clipboard in his hands.

"You almost got yourself sucked into the heart of the TARDIS for _that_?"

"Well, that is very important, you wouldn't be a proper TARDISion without it, Amy, you see," he said, looking more and more pleased with himself.

"TARDISion?" Amy laughed.

"I don't know, I just made it up, but I like it, I might make it an official term," said the Doctor, standing up.

"So what is it?" asked Amy.

"My list."

"A list of…?"

"People. Friends. TARDISions," he smiled.

"Why do you need it?"

"I don't. You do."

"Why do I need it?"

"Just… sign it," the Doctor said simply.

"Sign it? Why?"

"Because," the Doctor replied, searching for a satisfactory reason. "Because I said so."

"No," said Amy. She loved being argumentative.

"It's my time machine; you'll do as I say!"

Amy raised her eyebrows, considering pushing him a little further. In the end, she simply grabbed the clipboard from him, and held it out of his reach. Hundreds of signatures were scrawled all over it, and she saw the paper was folded several times to fit on the small space.

"So, you've travelled with all these people?" she asked, still studying the paper.

"At some point."

"And they've all left?"

"Or moved on, or found someone better," he replied, not a hint of sadness in his voice.

"Why do you collect signatures?"

"Memories… records … reminders."

"No other reason? No super spacey, sci-fi supernatural reason?"

"No," said the Doctor. Amy couldn't tell if he was being totally truthful, but she accepted it.

"Well then, what's stopping me?"

The Doctor held out a pen to her and she scrawled her name in the first empty space she saw. She paused, waiting for the surprise that was surely going to come with it, but nothing happened.

"You were being serious, then," she said, a little disappointed.

"Always am."

"I thought there might be a nice surprise waiting for me once I'd signed."

"Maybe there is. Maybe you just have to be patient."

Amy rolled her eyes, thrust the clipboard at the Doctor and walked away, leaving him alone again. As she left, the ink on the paper glowed slightly, going unnoticed to anyone but the Doctor.

Making sure Amy had left; the Doctor slid the paper over what looked like a mirror on the TARDIS. The words burned there for a second, then faded, and the TARDIS beeped her appreciation.

"Get her on record, old girl," the Doctor said, patting the console. "She's a keeper."


End file.
